


Passing By

by terryh_nyan



Series: Till I Find You [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-07 00:30:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8776021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terryh_nyan/pseuds/terryh_nyan
Summary: Midterms at Hogwarts are, simply put, hell. Especially for Katsuki Yuuri, Muggle-born student who transferred all the way from Japan only for his career as a musician to come to a standstill and for his grades to plummet. Thankfully, Ravenclaw Prefect Viktor Nikiforov seems to have taken an interest in him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Whoa, can't believe I'm posting this.
> 
> Okay, first of all, liberties were taken. I haven't read all of the Harry Potter books (yet) and I've researched as best as I could, but I couldn't find any evidence of there being actual midterm exams at Hogwarts. But now there are. Sorry, Yuuri, better luck next time.
> 
> Liberties were taken with a lot of other things, too, but I can't say or else I'll spoil it for you. The one thing I can say is that I'm aware of all the other Wizarding Schools around the world and I'm not choosing to ignore them, there's reasons. That will be explained. One day.
> 
> This work is probably going to be the first of a series, which is why some things are left unexplained/hinted. For anything else that doesn't add up, you can blame me.
> 
> English is not my first language and this fic isn't beta'd, so I apologise for any mistakes you may find along the way.
> 
> Let's see, what else? I picked music instead of figure skating for this AU because of the particular concept of music that exists within the Harry Potter universe, which I hope to be able to explore more deeply in the next works. I've got the ideas, I haven't _really_ got the time, but I really want to make it work so I promise I'll make it work.
> 
> Almost forgot: the fic's title's from a song by Korean composer Yiruma, as is the series's title. I just might keep the theme running all throughout the series, and I think it'd be nice if you listened to "Passing By" as you read; it's very relaxing and fitting. I did it while I was editing and I found it improved the flow quite a bit.
> 
> That's all. Enjoy!
> 
> OH YEAH WAIT OF COURSE I FORGOT
> 
> In this universe, students enroll at Hogwarts whenever they would usually enroll in High School, so around 14-15 years of age. That would put Yuuri at 18 and Viktor at 21, respectively (I tried to stick to the original ages as much as I could.)

“Yuuri!”

Every year, after their midterm exams, the Gryffindor students step foot into the courtyard and know, without fail, what they’re going to witness. It all comes down to three things, really: the most common and obvious being the sighs of relief, for Gryffindors are at their best before the fight, and rarely afterwards. The second, as it has been commonplace for almost three years, is Phichit Chulanont shedding his student skin one step out the door and flipping his reporter switch at the speed of light, the trademark chivalry of his house discarded like a dull quill and replaced with double the nerve and daring. Indispensable qualities, at least in order for him to stalk every single one of his schoolmates in a hungry search for first impressions, spur of the moment comments and, as is usually the case, the sincerest of curses in the mugglest of senses.

The third is, of course, Katsuki Yuuri spontaneously turning into a zombie.

“ _Yuuri!_ ”

Not betraying anyone’s expectations, Yuuri dutifully sleepwalks out of the classroom, his eyes unfocused and his body lighter than a vapour cloud. He sidesteps his classmates in a daze, letting the crowd push him around like a stray scrap of paper caught between winds. Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t hear, not right away– not until his eyes wander, almost by chance, to a tiny black dot in the middle of the courtyard.

A black, blue and silver dot, jogging his way at high speed.

He’s only distantly aware of his own pace picking up.

“Yuuri!”

Viktor’s breath is short, his hair not nearly as tidy as usual. If he’d been told that, someday, he would’ve witnessed music prodigy Viktor Nikiforov looking like that – would’ve _made_ him look like that – Yuuri would’ve laughed, long and hard and bitter. Right now, however, he feels as breathless as Viktor looks.

“Viktor?” Yuuri’s eyes go wide. “What are you doing here? What about your mid–”

Viktor brushes those questions away with a quick gesture. “It’s fine, it’s fine, I finished early!” That’s possibly the first time Yuuri hears that exact sentence from the mouth of a seventh-year student, but it doesn’t shock him, not really. At least Viktor has the decency to look sheepish, if just a little. “So, Yuuri, how’d it go?”

“I…” Yuuri gulps. Viktor’s expectant eyes remind him of his neighbour’s husky puppy: clear like ice, warm like a hot spring, brimming with a hope so bright he almost has to look away.

Almost. “I think I did okay. I stirred seven times clockwise and one time anti-clockwise, just like you taught me. The colour seemed right, too, so–”

“Ah!” Viktor’s hands clasp down on his shoulders before he can blink. “Was it the Sleeping Draught, then?!”

“I, uh… Oh, yes. Yes, it was the Sleeping Draught. I think I overheated it a bit, but the professor looked pleased enough…”

“ _Very_ good, Yuuri!” Yuuri doesn’t put up any resistance when Viktor wraps his arms around his shoulders and begins to squeeze, making him sway left and right like a ragdoll.

Ordinarily, he would’ve squeezed back, fighting to calm down his own frantic heartbeat. Today, however, like any other exams day, he can’t find the strength to do anything other than think distantly, as if through fog.

Viktor hugs him tighter, rubbing his cheek against Yuuri’s temple. “I knew you could do it!” he squeals, delighted. “Despite being stubborn as a mule, hating Potions with all your heart, and your tendency to, somehow, constantly get _any_ recipe that isn’t for Muggle cooking wrong! You did it! I’m so, _so_ proud of you.”

Yuuri wonders whether he should feel flattered or offended, but that, too, takes a backseat in his mind. Over the past few months, he’s had enough Viktor-treatment to understand the underlying principle behind his teaching: that he’ll never let Yuuri’s accomplishments with bringing his grades back to normal go unpraised, but that he’ll also never let him off the hook for letting them get so bad in the first place. Stick and carrot; praise and diss. Viktor is a bit of a rollercoaster that way.

He’s also helped Yuuri immensely at getting back on his feet, and Yuuri doesn’t think he’ll ever stop waking up in the morning and wondering whether that’s the morning he realises he’s been dreaming all along, only to be sent back to his life of long nights, so dark and dreamless they’d put Viktor’s own Sleeping Draughts to shame. Whether that’s, finally, the morning the dream ends.

So far, though, it hasn’t.

“What about the other subjects?” Viktor purrs. All the silly swaying in the magical world can’t hide the note of warm anticipation in his voice, something that makes Yuuri’s body jolt and his mind clear. “Charms? Defence? Transfiguration?”

“Charms and Transfiguration weren’t anything too complicated,” he manages to reply. “Defence was alright. Thankfully it wasn’t a Boggart, just…”

“Mh?”

Viktor’s blue scarf flutters as he pulls back, slowly, to look him in the eye with undivided attention. Yuuri gulps. “Just some pixies.”

“The Fairy Jailbreak!” Viktor’s eyes sparkle with memories. “How nostalgic. We got that at our third-year midterms, too.”

“Really?” Yuuri finds himself smiling.

“Really.”

The crowd has almost completely dispersed, so they walk across the courtyard and back into the building. Viktor’s arm hangs loosely around his shoulders, but Yuuri doesn’t complain.

“It figures that they wouldn’t use a Boggart, though,” Viktor resumes, his interest piqued. “After all, every single book on them is being rewritten because of you, isn’t it?” There’s something soft in the sound of Viktor’s words, vowels sweet and pliable, and low enough that no one else can hear. Tactfulness, too, in the cadence of that last sentence, careful enough to show respect and casual enough to offer a way out, if Yuuri wants to take it.

Yuuri does, gratefully, by silence.

He’d rather not remember the Boggart incident. Had he known what was in store for that lesson, he would’ve holed up in Gryffindor Tower claiming to be sick until they’d more than moved on. But their professor had wanted to kick things off with a bang and Yuuri had watched, terrified and powerless, as his turn to showcase his worst fear in front of everybody approached.

And then it happened.

He stepped forward, eyes shut, hands shaking, and the creature hovered over him, swirling madly, the tell-tale shift that preceded the transformation seemingly lasting forever.

When he timidly opened an eye, more than a minute later, it was still shifting. The room was silent, and the professor looked back and forth, between him and the creature, in absolute shock.

It wasn’t a good day for Yuuri, but the magical community lost their heads over it for weeks afterwards. As for him, he’d returned to the tower as quickly as his feet would carry him and had slept for eighteen hours straight inside a tinted bubble of his own making.

Thinking back, it’s understandable that their professor would rather put them up against something known rather than the one thing everybody’s still figuring out, but Yuuri had nightmares for each night leading up to the exam nevertheless.

It’s Viktor who speaks again, humming to himself before letting that same warmth back into his voice. “Since you probably passed all your classes, then…” he leans in close, fingers curling around Yuuri’s shoulder, and Yuuri prays he couldn’t feel him shiver just then. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

Another thing he’s learnt about Viktor Nikiforov in the past few months: he’s a _very_ physical person. He hugs like a friend, pats like a parent, clings like a house pet who dislikes being left alone. And he touches, quite unlike anyone or anything he can think of – with subtle strokes behind his neck or open-palmed caresses along the small of his back. Sometimes, it’s a combination of both.

What’s surprising, to Yuuri, is how Viktor seems to tread in perfect balance on the edges of his comfort zone, without ever overstepping into the territory of ‘too much’, however flamboyant his ways may be. Sometimes, Yuuri is left to wonder whether there would be such a thing as ‘too much’ or ‘too far’ with Viktor, no matter how far he went.

He quickly shrinks back into his scarf, burying his chin and his thoughts, all but the only one that matters – that what is truly surprising, to Yuuri, is that Ravenclaw Prefect Viktor Nikiforov would stick around him long enough to touch in the first place.

Finally, his mind circles back to Viktor’s question, and he answers, his voice muffled by the fabric: “I do. I’ll get clearance as soon as the results are in. Then we can start…”

“Why wait?”

Viktor laces fingers with him and, as suddenly as he’s spoken, he makes a sharp turn and pulls Yuuri up a staircase just about to move away. Yuuri blinks, eyes wide and filled with a thousand questions, but he follows, struggling to keep up. “Viktor, wait! What does that mean?!”

“It means,” Viktor huffs, bounding up the staircase with Yuuri in tow, “since I’m technically not a teacher,” a ghost flies in front of them and curses when they don’t stop in time not to run her through, “that we aren’t breaking any rules.”

“That’s,” Yuuri exhales, “terrible,” his chest aches, “logic,” his breath is coming in short gasps, “for a Prefect!”

“Well, I didn’t make myself Prefect, so!”

“So, what?!”

“So, not my fault!”

They run and run, darting past the paintings and their inhabitants, tripping here and there along the way. It’s mostly Yuuri who trips, recovering at the last second and only because Viktor’s there, pulling him along. His grip is firm, but soft, leaving it up to Yuuri’s choice completely whether to slip away from his fingers or to hold on tightly. His lungs are screaming for mercy, his legs threatening to give out from under him with each step, but Yuuri follows, as stubborn as his tutor. “Why are we running?!” he asks as they turn, relieved that, for once, they’re going down. Wait, going down? “And why are we running in _circles_?!”

Viktor’s laughter echoes through the halls, clear as bells. “Because it’s fun! And because,” he adds, turning to look at Yuuri. Yuuri’s red cheeks, Yuuri’s dishevelled hair. Yuuri’s glasses, askew on the bridge of his nose. “We need a room to practice in.”

And it strikes him at last, like the ingredients of a complex potion finally clicking together, turning the vial just the right shade of purple. “ _That’s_ why you’re making me run? Because…” oh, no, he can’t take another minute of this– “of _that_ room?”

Sweat is trickling down his tutor’s forehead, sticking his silver hair to the nape of his neck, but Viktor turns around, grinning, and _winks_.

That’s when they hear it.

It’s a low rumble of rock sliding against rock, of buried storm clouds exploding in thunderclap at the very core of Hogwarts. They halt to a stop, Viktor panting against a wall and Yuuri gasping for breath with his palms on his knees, and Viktor must be the first to see it, because Yuuri hears a soft chuckle and he can spy, from the corner of his eye, Viktor’s grin getting wider. When he finally lifts his head all the way up, there’s a door at the opposite side of the floor, cloaked in oddly-placed shadows and easy to miss; a door that definitely wasn’t there before.

Yuuri recognises it instantly.

“Good work, Yuuri!” Viktor gives him a pat on the back, energetic enough to upset his balance and threaten to send him rolling back down to square one. “You found it right away!”

Yuuri blinks, first at Viktor, then at the door. “I did? I don’t think that was…”

“ _Davaj, davaj!_ ” Viktor jogs towards the door, finding the strength Merlin knows where. Yuuri follows. He didn’t expect his midterms _not_ to be the most exhausting occurrence of the day, but he clearly failed to account for Viktor Nikiforov and his love for – or borderline obsession with – surprises.

Viktor stands beside the door, a palm outstretched. “Students first.”

Yuuri takes a deep breath, and pushes the door open.

It reveals a long, familiar corridor, which makes their every step bounce off the walls. It’s too narrow to walk side by side, so Yuuri leads the way, Viktor humming a happy tune in tow.

The room is just as they’d left it.

It’s still early in the day, but the light seeping in through the windows is painted powder-blue by the stained glass, drowning the room in a perpetual twilight. A calming sensation washes through Yuuri’s whole body: ever since discovering the true nature of that room, he’s always felt an indebted sort of reverence towards it, one that occasionally makes him too nervous for his own good. But it never lasts long: taking one breath of that crisp, night-like air is enough to ease him back into a state of comfort and undisturbed focus.

It’s exactly what he needs, and the room knows it. It’s known him from the beginning, ever since it first revealed itself to him in his darkest hour, when all he wanted was a quiet, deserted place to make music.

The walls of the room are lined with musical instruments. Violins and violas, cellos and harpsichords, all lie against each other in perfect balance; next to them, a stack of flutes of every kind, wooden and brass and metal, towers without a wobble. There’s guitars, too, both acoustic and electric ones, lying on their side from smallest to biggest. At the far end of the room, the most majestic organon Yuuri’s ever seen stretches up, up, all the way to the ceiling with his tall brass pipes.

Yuuri, however, walks straight to the centre of the room, where a lone piano stands, still and untouched.

Tentatively, as if asking for permission, he lets his fingers brush against the black wooden cover of the piano’s keyboard.

“It’s been a while,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “Sorry about that.”

A vibration courses through the tips of Yuuri’s fingers, like a quiet humming of invisible chords. It pulls the corners of Yuuri’s mouth upwards into a small, tender smile.

Carefully, he pushes the lid open.

The keys are dazzling white, as if they haven’t been touched in centuries – as if they no longer remember what it’s like to make music. Like a wolf without a pack, who still howls at the moon every night.

Yuuri’s fingers hesitate over the keys. He hasn’t been there in so long; he almost wonders whether he has any right to be back.

A rattling sound close behind him startles him, and Yuuri spins around, finding himself face to face with Viktor, a pair of colourful maracas hanging loosely from his hands.

Yuuri blinks.

Viktor smiles, and shakes the maracas.

“We have a little time before lunch,” he says, absent-mindedly releasing his grip on a maraca to fish his watch out of his pocket. Yuuri moves to catch it on reflex, but it doesn’t dip an inch from where Viktor left it, floating effortlessly mid-air. “Less than two hours.” His lips curve into a disappointed pout. He throws the other maraca in the air, and gestures for the two to settle back into their case, which closes with a sharp _snap_.

Questions come rushing up to Yuuri’s lips like a flood. Questions that have been there for months, and questions that have been born just a few seconds prior, both swirl and tug at his chords, begging to be spoken.

The biggest of all being: why him?

Why tutor _him_? What could Viktor Nikiforov, the most ground-breaking musician in the magical and Muggle worlds alike, possibly gain from tutoring a nobody like Yuuri?

Why stick around, once he’d learnt of Yuuri’s academic problems? Why even help him through them, on top of everything else, just to let him earn back his clearance to attend extracurricular courses?

Why get mixed up with an underclassman from another House, with all the difficulties that came with it? If he wished to take on a student, wasn’t Ravenclaw full of promising talents in the musical field?

Talents that, in all likelihood, would’ve chopped their own arms off before enabling living legend Viktor Nikiforov to throw away the rest of his career on them when he was so close to graduation – and rightfully so, Yuuri thinks with a pang of guilt.

Why rush his N.E.W.T. midterms just so they can practice an extra hour before lunch? Why get such an excited twinkle in his eyes at the mere idea?

However, of all his questions, the one to break through the barrier of his lips is: “We could skip lunch, if you want? I’m sure Celest– I mean, Professor Cialdini would be glad to whip something up for us later. He’s free today, and he’s expecting me and Phichit–kun to tell him about the midterms and say goodbye before the break. So, if you really want to practice now…”

Maybe it’s the way they catch the light, from that particular angle, that makes Viktor’s eyes look slightly wider than usual. A split-second impression, soon overwritten; a smile has already taken its place before he can take a better look and, by the time he turns around all the way, Viktor’s hands are there, pressed against his cheeks in a demanding way.

“Oh, no, we can’t,” he chimes, pulling and squishing Yuuri’s face until it resembles a Niffler’s snout seen from the front, “I know how sacred meal time is to a certain little piggy. Besides, you’re all going home tomorrow! You surely don’t want to miss your last lunch of the year with your housemates!”

“There’s always dinner,” Yuuri tries to argue back, but it comes out halfway between a mumble and an Erumpent mating call. He refrains from trying again. “Besides–”

“What was that?” Viktor smiles, pinching both of his cheeks at once and making him whimper. “Did you say _‘let’s practice already’_? Because I could swear that’s what I heard!”

Yuuri has to give it to him: Viktor’s enthusiasm is contagious. Annoying, now and then, and deathly so, but contagious nonetheless. “Alright, if you insist.”

He almost touches the keys before Viktor’s words echo into his ears. _You’re all going home tomorrow_.

“Wait.” Yuuri turns around, eyes big and quizzical. “What about you? Aren’t you going home?”

A note, clear as water, fills the room. Yuuri’s eyes dart downwards to find Viktor’s fingers tentatively pressing the keys of the piano, checking if it’s tuned. “Ah, we’re not. Yakov has business here, so Georgij and I are staying. Mila and Yurio, too.” A mischievous smile, and then: “Maybe I’ll ask them to help me build a secret tunnel into Gryffindor Tower, so I can come drag you out of bed every morning in person!”

“Even with the school half-empty, there’s no way that’s going to work!” Yuuri cries. If anyone would go along with such an insane, rule-breaking project, though, it would probably be Yurio.

“So you’d better relax while you can,” Viktor purrs, gleefully ignoring Yuuri’s objection, and Yuuri feels delicate fingers tilt his chin upwards, gentle and firm. “Because I’m not going easy on you once you get back.”

The quiet laughter that comes from Yuuri’s lips surprises them both. “That’s going to be a little difficult.” For once, it’s Viktor who looks like he has a thousand questions to ask, and Yuuri can’t help but feel a small surge of pride. He dwells in it, briefly, before clarifying: “Since I’m not leaving in the first place either.”

“You’re not?”

Viktor’s fingers drop, resting against the collar of Yuuri’s shirt. On an impulse, Yuuri grabs them, his grip soft and ethereal. “The Hogwarts Express only brings us to London. From there, it’s either the Floo Network, Apparition, or a plane,” he explains, an amused smile playing across his lips. “We don’t have a chimney back at home, and I can’t really Apparate; it’d be risky to try, let alone all the way across the globe. And plane tickets are pretty expensive, especially around Christmas, which my family doesn’t even really celebrate.” Yuuri doesn’t know when that kind of courage blossomed into his heart – the courage to take initiative and open up about the smallest things, those things nobody would be interested in long enough to listen. But Viktor listens as if he’s dying to see where this is going, which shape Yuuri’s lips are going to take next. “Plus, it’s too short a holiday,” Yuuri concludes, thumb drawing idle circles across the back of Viktor’s palm. “I’d have to be back before I know it. For me, it’s easier to stay at the castle.”

Only then, as he drops his gaze in a surge of shyness, does Yuuri notice the subconscious movements of his fingers. A blush creeps across his cheeks; he’s about to move away, but Viktor’s hand stills him before he has the chance to, wrapping Yuuri’s hand in his own. “That’s good news. It means I can start grilling you as soon as tomorrow morning.”

“Please don’t put it like that,” Yuuri whines, defeated.

Viktor makes a soft sound in his throat, a quiet chuckle that reverberates all the way through Yuuri’s ears. “You’ll have to tell me, one day,” he says then, and there’s fondness in his voice, warm and endearing, “what made you come all the way over here.”

Yuuri doesn’t reply. He gazes up instead, up to Viktor’s smiling eyes, and doesn’t say anything. Simply watches as they – and this isn’t a trick of the light – grow wider and darker in the slightest of ways while the silence stretches between them, like a fat cat in the sunlight, and something that looks strikingly akin to realisation starts welling up inside them.

Neither of them gets a chance to speak. The Clock Tower tolls, chiming the hour, and their hands break apart.

“Practice!” Viktor jumps, and “Uh, yeah, right,” Yuuri squeaks, sitting down on the bench as rigidly as if he were made of stone.

“W-What should I do?”

That’s always the question, isn’t it? Especially around Viktor Nikiforov. _What should I do?_ wonders Yuuri, palms plastered to his sides and starting to sweat. _What should I do?_ he asks with his eyes, with his whole body, as his gaze hesitates over the piano keyboard.

Viktor, however, always seems to have an answer to that. “For now,” he murmurs, gently prying Yuuri’s hands from his sides and guiding them to the keyboard, “let me hear you.”

Yuuri does.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional liberties taken:  
> \- The Boggart. I love to speculate about things, and I love to think that its true form is exactly that: an ever-changing ball of fear. I would love to go into detail about this, but it's hella late.  
> \- The Sleeping Draught. The "one time anti-clockwise" variation was actually for the Draught of Living Death, but we never got the Prince's notes about older potions, so I guess it might apply to this one, too, since they're similar potions in purpose. (The ingredients instead are completely different. I checked. Like, sick different.)  
> \- I could swear there was something else  
> \- Oh yeah well the music, but I'm going to go a bit more into detail about that in the next works.  
> \- C'mon there was something  
> \- Aaahh I'm going to remember as soon as I update this aren't I  
> Edit: THE ROOM OF REQUIREMENT. I'm dumb. That was, like, the biggest liberty. Okay, so, I know it's so abused as a trope, but I just couldn't resist giving Yuuri a substitute for his quiet rink in Hasetsu. He'd clearly be uncomfortable as hell if he always had to practice around other people and I just couldn't do that to him. I like to think that he resonated with the room and that the room felt just how much he needed a private space to deal with things, so it gave him one. I played a bit with the activation rules of the room, but I tried to be as accurate as I could (while adding a little twist for those who caught it. Insert sly cackling.)  
> Okay, that should really be it. Thanks for reading!


End file.
